our bodies twist like shoelaces and we never came untied
by black-ostias
Summary: no zombies AU. rick has to deal with a completely different kind of hell. daryl and michonne are the two unexpected people who'll take him in and stitch him back together.
1. your heartbeat's what we try to play

**i hit a snag on jailbait!daryl and try as i did, all my brain spelled out was WRITE ABOUT DARYL AND MICHONNE SEDUCING RICK BUT MAKE IT MEANINGFUL AND SHIT, and. jesus. who are we to deny the world something like that?**

**this was supposed to be a neat 3000-word pwp but nooooo. it got away from me, reins, saddle and all. i'm just as helpless as the rest of youse.**

**titles modified from bright eyes.**

* * *

**Rick's POV**

A month and five days after Lori files the divorce papers, you move in with your best friends.

You knock at the door of 3C and walk in once you hear the gruff yell of "it's open!" After having to stay in a motel room only ten feet wide, this apartment is a palace. You drop your duffel in the living room (and isn't it a marvel, thirteen years and one measly bag is all you have to show for what you've accumulated) and try not to feel too out of place amongst the canvases with the weird splotches of paint on it that's supposed to be art. You put your sheriff's hat on the couch, wondering what's taking so long for –

"Hey, man." Daryl walks out of one of the bedrooms drying his hair off with a towel, damp patches on his gray T-shirt and the top button of his pants still undone. "We weren't expectin ya til later."

"I can see that," you say, sweeping your eyes across the whole space again, from the dishes still in the sink to the pile of used clothes halfheartedly shoved under a side desk. Between Michonne's long hours and Daryl's aversion to manual labor that wasn't "manly," of course they'd be hopeless at housekeeping, and you grin.

Daryl starts trying to clean up, folding newspapers up the wrong way and edging throw pillows into what he thinks is probably a decorative manner. You chuckle, feeling lighter than you have in weeks. "You don't need to make such an effort, Daryl, it's just me."

He shrugs, scoops up the mess of clothes from the floor. "Yeah, but seein as you're used ta order an' shit. Y'know. Me and Mich are total slobs."

You think about your neat suburban house with the manicured front lawn, and Lori constantly pushing the furniture back into place after every party, and her arms going around your waist as she sighs, _everything's so perfect_.

"Slobbish behavior's perfectly fine," you say, and for the first time since you've walked into this apartment, Daryl smiles at you, and you smile back.

* * *

Michonne comes back from work in a blazer and dress pants and a flurry of righteous anger.

"Seriously? You started dinner without me?"

Daryl licks lumpia sauce off the side of his finger and waves from where he's sprawled on the couch. "Ain't our fault y'decided ta work overtime again. 'Sides, Rick was hungry."

She huffs but it looks like the trespass is forgiven, for now. She goes over to where you're hunched guiltily by the coffee table, runs her hand through your curls like you're a cat, nails scritching at your scalp. "And don't you look it. You haven't been taking care of yourself," she says, partly scolding, mostly concerned, and a rush of almost affection coalesces in your chest.

"Be glad I didn't steal your share too," you say, which earns you a light thwap on the shoulder from Michonne and in turn a bark of laughter from Daryl. She nudges his legs off the couch to eat, and you listen to their bickering for a while, contented with just taking this all in when you remember –

"Will I be sleeping on the couch?"

They grow abruptly silent, and you stumble over the words, "I'm completely okay with that, by the way. I was shocked you two even offered to let me stay the second I told you about. My situation."

Michonne and Daryl exchange these unreadable looks before Daryl says, "You're takin my room."

You blink, a bit taken aback. "You're moving out?"

"And into my room," Michonne clarifies and. _Oh_. You wonder why you're so surprised. For all their insistence that nothing would ever happen between them, you can see how Daryl's gently curving into Michonne, shoulders nudging each other with a degree of something more than familiarity, the helpless flush on his face and the wry smile on hers.

Because you remember catching Daryl off guard in the first few months of knowing each other, a hand on his shoulder and you got punched hard enough that your teeth tore the inside of your cheek. You remember him pawing frantically at your shoulders for forgiveness and having to spit out huge maroon globs into the gutter beside you, groaning _it's okay it's okay_.

You remember Michonne talking wistfully about her little boy Andre who has to stay with her parents, but never about the little boy's father; all the calls interrupting your night-outs that had her snarling "stop calling me" before shutting off her phone vehemently.

They're good together. You're happy for them. Aloud you say, "I still feel like I'll be imposing either way."

You're not sure what changes. Just a pause, the slightest shift in breathing, and both of them are looking at you strangely, open and warm but it's not acidic like pity. Daryl smirks. "You won't."

* * *

A year and a half before Lori files the divorce papers, you and Shane are called to a highway collision a little outside of the county limits, a chopper branging into a white pickup. The guy on the chopper has a nasty graze beneath his hairline and a new tear in his already ratty jeans, but he walks it off to yell at the woman driving the pickup. She's spitting back just as fiercely, dreadlocks flying when she gestures to her busted headlight. You only barely calm them down, and when Shane's gathered from witnesses that the guy had swerved to avoid running over a raccoon, chalking things up to a genuine accident, the woman throws her arms up in surrender. "Fine, I won't press charges."

To your utter bewilderment, the guy grins, blood down the side of his face and all. "Be glad _I_ ain't pressin charges. Was a mean right hook ya tried t'give me earlier."

"Well, I'm an attorney, and you wouldn't win that case even if it stretched on for a year, buster."

You can't help the laugh that escapes you, and that's how you end up befriending an attorney named Michonne and a mechanic named Daryl.

* * *

Five weeks after Lori files the divorce papers, you call your son.

"Dad!" He's genuinely pleased to hear from you, and it pulls at the stitches on your heart. "Hey, Carl," you greet him, cellphone pinned between your ear and your shoulder as you put the last plate back in its place inside the cabinet.

"Did you move in with Michonne and Daryl yet? Is the crossbow there? When can I visit?"

Carl is all staticked bursts of excitement, and you snort. "You just want to see Daryl's crossbow more than you want to see your old man."

"Well, yeah." He at least seems sheepish enough. "But I miss you. This getting divorced idea sucks."

You have to lean against the kitchen counter, squeezing your eyes shut. "I know, buddy. But it has to happen."

"Don't you love Mom anymore?" he asks, thirteen years old and so serious, and you grip at your chest, wonder if your hand will be stained red once you pull it away. "She doesn't love me," you say, flat admission of fact.

"Oh." He's quiet, the soft hum of his breath audible. Then: "Shane comes by a lot."

You have to laugh, because it's a better option than kicking the shit out of the kitchen table. "Sure he does."

"If Mom marries him, I'm not changing my name. You're _my_ dad."

Gravity's pull is suddenly too heavy and you sit in the closest chair, knuckles blanching against the wood. "Thank you," you say, sounding much too far away. Long after Carl's hung up you listen to the slicing dial tone, hoping that it'll singe everything else from your mind.

It turns out you won't have a problem with that.

Midnight comes and goes, and you're still awake despite the exhaustion and the shitty end to your day. Noise come trickling from Michonne's and Daryl's room, and maybe it's the lack of proper insulation but it's starting to become a problem. You think about rapping on the adjoining wall when –

"Oh _fuck_."

Daryl's voice actually cracks, and you start, not used to something like that coming from a man, your face heating up. This can't be happening.

"Don't ya fuckin make me beg."

A gently reverberating sound, Michonne's laughter. It is.

"Fuckin put it in me already!"

Wait. What?

When the pleas for – what are they even doing? – turn into something else, you only then think to jam up your ears with pillows, not that it changes anything, because you can still hear Daryl moaning curses, Michonne breathing out fast and high pitched.

You don't think about what the explanation could be, because there's only one possible option, and you have no idea if either of them would even enjoy that and.

No. You're not thinking about it. At all.

* * *

You actually come to believe that last night was some sort of elaborate prank until you see them kissing by the refrigerator, if kissing is about rubbing faces together and missing each other's mouths half the time. Neither of them seems to mind, smiling like little kids and you duck into the bathroom before they see you and the blood pooling in your cheeks.

Breakfast is a stilted affair. Daryl steals the marshmallows out of your Lucky Charms and you don't complain, too busy not staring at the fingerprint bruises peeking out of his tank top, next to the inked devils on his shoulder. Michonne has a bite mark snug against her clavicle, one she keeps touching absentmindedly as she sprays some canned cheese onto her toast.

"You look like shit," Daryl remarks conversationally, spoon fisted in his hand like he's five years old, leaning forward so he's sitting more on his thighs instead of his ass. He's still blinking at you, waiting for an answer, and you remember the mug in your grip, gulp down too much coffee and it stings your throat.

"Well, I would've gotten more rest if someone wasn't so loud," you say after that, and he goes abruptly pink, muttering _sorry_ and all but shoveling the cereal into his mouth.

Michonne coughs, smiling a little embarrassed, a little…possessive. "We thought you were already asleep," she says by way of apology, low and smoky, like she's been at Daryl's menthol cigarettes. "I tried shutting him up once. Didn't work."

The kitchen table is suddenly much too small for your comfort; the two of them too close against your sides as they do what can only be qualified as sex faces at each other. "I'll just borrow earplugs from the firing range," you say, standing up with a clatter and bringing your dishes to the sink, ready to hightail it out of here and to work except.

"We'll stop. But only if you think we should."

Both of them are staring at you something terrible, catching at your edges and tugging low at your stomach, all your good intentions figure-eighting into hell.

* * *

Shane knocks on your cubicle wall and you don't bother meeting his eyes, pretending to be busy with paperwork when you're really scribbling at the corners of the Hamburglar coloring page a little girl had filled in while waiting for her mom to get out of intake.

"…And y'aren't even listening." Shane sighs. "Lori said you did this a lot."

"She must tell you a lot of things," you say, carefully neutral, and you look up just in time to see the expression that passes over your once best friend's face, like when you were both sixteen and he was all sneer and vicious retort, distorted as if by acid. You suffer a brief spike of rage, and you smooth a hand down the back of your head, reel yourself in.

You sit up straighter, rubbing at the bridge of your nose, hissing between your teeth. "Look, I think it's best if we stay away from each other a while, if you're gonna keep warming up to my wife. Give me that courtesy, at least."

He makes a sound that isn't much like a laugh, though that's must have been what he was going for. "Rick, I'm not doing shi –"

"Don't lie to me," you say, not quite a reprimand, your hand already resting on the butt of your Python. "Once I start hitting you, I might not be able to stop."

Shane smirks but the trepidation behind his eyes is palpable, and he leaves without another word. You feel like you've lost something, but also like there's now room in you deep down for something more.

* * *

Daryl's sitting on the coffee table when you get back, hand clamped around a half-empty bottle of scotch. His head raises slowly, hair obscuring his eyes but his lip's curled up, junkyard dog look about him that fits a little too well on his face.

"What happened?"

His words are mostly steady, only corroded by years of exhaustion. "Merle happened, s'what."

"Oh," is all you say, and he snorts, glaring at nothing in particular.

"Yeah. Oh."

You never knew Daryl had a brother until he showed up to a dinner date with a black eye from said brother. From what little you and Michonne coaxed out of him, Merle had followed him to Atlanta, demanded that he stop fraternizing with nigras and cops, and go back to drug running with him. "Obviously, he took mighty offense t'my reply," he said, his grin still a bit blood-stained.

He's not grinning now, and so you don't press the issue.

Daryl takes a pull from his scotch, the line of his throat working painfully slow. You should go and extricate the bottle from his grip, your fingers lacing with his. Guide him to the bed he shares with Michonne, lay him down. It's an unsettling thought, dark red and overheated, and you banish it almost completely. Almost.

"You gonna be okay?" It's a stupid question, but you have to ask.

"Who's gonna be okay?"

The door clicks shut and Michonne's frowning at the both of you, though it doesn't take long for her to piece things together herself. She sighs and sits beside Daryl, her hand gentle on his knee. "He better not have followed you here, or I'll kick his stalkerific ass."

He's careful exhaling, a small tired smile and a grumbled "use yer grownup words, woman," before he kisses her, deep with the brace of his thumb holding her jaw.

It's like all the air has left the room, your ribs crushed by the vacuum, your throat caved in. Michonne cups Daryl's face, tips his head forward and it's their little-kid kissing again, but this time it's not adorable. This time it's smothering you, dragging you down and you must've made a noise of some kind, because they're both looking at you again, and.

"You can watch if you want."

Michonne's positively leering, and though Daryl's more hesitant, chewing on his lip, his eyes are just. His goddamn eyes.

"So. You comin, Friendly? Only if you want."

youwantyouwant_youwant._

"Okay," you finally get out, almost a mortifying croak, and when they grin and disappear into their bedroom, you can do nothing but follow.

* * *

They're already undressing each other when you come in, an ungainly sprawl of twined limbs on the bed. Unsure of what to do, you sit in the chair beside the cluttered desk, your anxiety exacerbated by the fact that it's clear they're not just putting on a show for you.

No, it's much worse than that.

Because Michonne murmurs "okay?" when she tugs at the hem of Daryl's shirt, not going any further until he nods and lifts his arms for her. Because he unbuttons her clothes so gently, strokes her everywhere he can reach, printing the contours of her bones onto his palms. Because the groan she makes once she clambers up Daryl's chest and her cunt settles over his mouth has your half-hard cock raging fully in your pants.

Because the bright little bedside lamp perfectly illuminates the sinewy muscles in Michonne's back and ass with the rolling motion of her body, of Daryl's body underneath her, rising against empty air like he can't help it, any more than you can help the dense craving at the base of your spine that needs something, some_one_ to grind against.

By the time Michonne stiffens and arches soundlessly, knots have formed in your arms from holding on so tight to your chair. You shift in position and it chafes your dick, relief and agony all at once, and you nearly bite through your tongue trying to keep your fingers away. You're terrified that if you do something, the spell will be broken and they'll shove you out. Or, even worse, you'll come in your shorts.

Daryl says something too soft for you to hear as Michonne rolls off him, and she snickers, pats the tenting in his jeans. He swears roughly, mouth falling open and you can see the wet shine on his lips, smearing along his cheek. You look away and suck in as much oxygen as your failing lungs can.

By the time you have the strength to look again, Daryl's struggling out of his jeans, his ruddy cock flat against his stomach. Michonne rolls a condom onto him, strokes him much too light and teasing, and pretty soon he's not the only one making noises from it. You don't know if you want to be the one benefitting from that clever hand, or the one causing the gorgeous blush staining Daryl's skin.

"Don't gotta butter me up like that, c'mon," he rumbles, hooking a leg around Michonne's thigh and. And. An altogether new wave of lust hits you so hard you nearly double over, Daryl's calf dragging along Michonne's hip doing unspeakable things to you.

"Patience," she says, her grin audible as she slots herself properly between his spread legs, and she slips on a glove, squirts lube onto her fingers and drags it down, and down.

You can't see anything but the curve of Michonne's back and breasts, Daryl's bent leg and his eager expression as he props himself up on his elbows, his sudden quake.

He moans, and it's nothing like hearing it through a wall, not when he's mere feet away and his ecstasy-wracked face is so visible. He tries to move against Michonne's fingers – that makes you tremble a bit, the staggering comprehension that Michonne's fingers aren't on him but _inside_ him – and he scrabbles at the bed sheets, a litany of curses spilling from him. It's like something's been unlocked inside Daryl and he's trying to fill every silent, empty space in his life with this.

"Fuck, c'mon, been waitin all day for this," he gasps after a while, and Michonne lets out a small "okay," yanks the glove off and it lands with a splat to the floor. She pulls something wrapped in a towel from the nightstand, and it looks like a dildo save for the odd bulb at the end, and you don't know how they're going to use that without a harness until she slicks up the bulb and slides it inside herself, and the thing sits in its obnoxious bright blueness, looking like it belongs to her body.

Daryl grabs another condom and fumbles it onto the dildo, kissing her as he does it, and rolls over onto his hands and knees.

Michonne looks surprised. "You sure?" she asks, her hand delicate on his shoulder, where downwards dark welts litter his back. Your stomach tries to crawl up your throat at the thought of when and how he got them.

He nods, so much trust in that gesture, and smiles, the mood lightening instantly.

"Now c'mon, gimme that big dick."

"Daryl," she chokes out, and they're both shaking with laughter, and you can't help smiling yourself. "Jesus, you know what I said about the dirty talk –"

"Mm, no, I don't. But y'like when I ask for it." There's no amusement in his voice now, low as pitch and just as molten black. "So please fuck me?"

It takes you a moment to realize you're holding your breath as Michonne grips Daryl's ass, presses inside all the way to the hilt. He moans, head dipping down and his deltoids straining, and a frightening thought surfaces in you: _i want to know what that feels like._

Daryl's arms give from under him, a different kind of mewl escaping his throat as he rasps, "fuck, too much, just gimme a sec."

"Do you need something to hold on to?" Michonne asks, tight like it's taking every ounce of her not to just rut into Daryl then and there, but still concerned. He nods and her next words are ice sliding under your collar, soaking you to the bone:

"Rick, come help."

You jerk up, terrified but that does nothing to curb your arousal. Daryl's gaping at you with eyes you've never seen before, and Michonne just looks. Hungry.

"Rick, help him up," she repeats, in what must be her courtroom voice, if her courtroom voice were as husky as that. You stand as if in a haze and sink down on the bed beside Daryl, let Michonne guide his arms around your neck and your hands to his waist.

He tightens his grip, staring at you with his pupils blown, the perpetual flush on his neck, and you think nonsensically, this is my best friend.

Daryl takes a stabilizing inhale, tells Michonne in a rush, "Y'can move now."

She rests her head between his shoulder blades, messy kisses against his tattoos as she thrusts, slow and deep and his nails are digging into you, but it's nothing compared to the puncture of his ragged whine against the tender skin of your neck.

"Okay?" Michonne asks, gradually picking up the pace and Daryl can only nod, his face pushed into your neck from the force of her movements. Terrified that he'll feel how rabid your pulse is, you bring a hand under his chin and tilt his chin up, and his eyes are dagger-sharp, more lucid than they'd been just seconds ago. You swear his swollen red mouth shapes your name, and you snap.

You kiss Daryl, and for some miraculous reason he kisses you back.

It's graceless, the angle not fit for it, but you never want it to end. You can taste something foreign in the corners of his lips, you taste _Michonne_, and it merely adds to the inferno that's become every inch of your soul. Michonne's next thrust knocks the two of you apart but you stay like that, sharing desperation, sharing breath. She's grinning far too smug at you over Daryl's head, and you haul him fully to his knees, kiss him so hard his nose digs into your cheek. And a good thing too, because once Michonne finally gets to wrapping a hand around him, he comes with a muffled shout, rapping his fists against your body almost in protest before slumping completely.

"Daryl," she moans after a heartbeat or two. "I have to –"

"Yeah, go on," he mumbles, and she just fucks him, all pretense gone, and you hold him as short, almost pained keens escape him with each thrust until she too is undone with a taut shiver a little later.

And they're looking at you all dazed and limp, a strange joy like wildfire spreading from their eyes and diffusing in your limbs. "You okay?" Daryl whispers, like he's not the one who just took a pounding, and you remember you're still disgustingly, maddeningly hard. You won't ever be able to look at the two of them again without going hard like you're back to being a hair-trigger teenager.

You don't know what pathetic excuse you come up with but you do know when you try to pull away, something's still bracing you down.

It's their hands, both of them, resting at the join of your hip and thigh and now creeping up to where you need it most, and a few synced rubs are all it takes. You come like you've been shoved off an airplane, crazy euphoric feeling of imminent death.

And Michonne leans across to kiss you, your lips the only things touching until she folds a hand around the nape of your neck, and she's smiling as she tells you, "Next time I'm fucking you."

As muffled and plainly stated as it is, your dick vigilantly tries to come to life again, but you're still spinning from your orgasm and the strange events of the whole day, and you can't even form coherent words. Daryl snickers from where he's settled beside the two of you.

"I think we broke him."

It's gentle, teasing, but it warps and curdles in your mind, Lori's perfectly formed sneer.

_look at you. all broken and used up._

Your tongue finally unsticks itself from the roof of your mouth, and all that comes out is a stiff "goodnight."

They don't try to stop you after that.

* * *

You dread coming out of your room and having to face the day (to face them), but you know you can't keep avoiding every painful thing forever. And it turns out that when the struts of your world crumble underneath you again, it's quieter, deeper than how a river runs.

Every step Michonne takes toward you from the kitchen sink is full of intent, her brows a tight line and you expected everything but another kiss, her tongue snaking into your mouth despite your morning breath and all.

"Do you get it now?" she says, hands curving around the insides of your elbows, streaking you white with soap but you don't care. "This isn't just about the sex, it was never." She pauses, her throat working as she tries to explain, but it's there in the broken curl of her lips, there in her ineloquence, her tight-lipped mouth. It speaks volumes, always has, and you wonder why it took you so long to hear it.

You wonder why you're so afraid.

"I do. I'm sorry," you say, and she sighs, her breath pushing warm into your face. She turns her head, and you follow to see Daryl leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and surveying the two of you, the edge of his mouth curved up into this impossibly sweet half-smile.

"Now that that's been cleared up," he drawls, pushing off the frame and coming to a rest behind you, a counterbalance to Michonne, who's smaller and slighter and just as unyielding. Your new home, you realize, as Daryl kisses your reedy pulse, is not the compact walls of this two bedroom apartment but this.

He murmurs, "Our offer still stands, y'know," and it burrs through you like an electrocution. You look from his pleased face to Michonne's laugh of _boy's got a one-track mind_, and you tell them, "I'll think about it," but not without kissing them, one after the other, and making them toast with cheese even if they've had breakfast already.

(and if you have to lock yourself in a bathroom stall during lunch break later that day to shove your hand down your shorts, teeth dug into your lower lip from recalling Michonne's dark fingers cradling the hollows of Daryl's hips, well, that's nobody's business.)

* * *

**BY THE WAY. michonne uses a feeldoe. you gon'hafta google that shit to find out about it, okay?**


	2. to calm your handsome hell

In the first week after Lori slammed the divorce papers before you and kicked you out, you ran on autopilot. You got a motel room, shaved, went to work, though until now you still don't know how you managed that. You were the sheriff's deputy, after all, and there were things that needed to be done.

No one had to know that you didn't sleep or eat as often as you should have, or that a pit had opened up under you and you didn't bother to teeter away from the edge so much as swan dive off it.

The third week brought Daryl to your door, telling you that you could stay with them as long as you needed to. His hand squeezing the back of your neck gently, and he'd never touched you like that before.

And then by the end of the sixth week –

* * *

Michonne brings home a feast for dinner.

"I am celebrating my win," she announces as she unveils the takeout steaks and the box of custard cake. "Don't ask; I'm putting the whole ordeal away, but you're celebrating with me."

"Hell yeah," Daryl exclaims, planting a big wet kiss on her cheek before ending up on the floor, all but inhaling the meat.

Michonne rolls her eyes at him, exaggerated and fond all at once, wearing half a smile, and you look down at your plate, overwhelming hot crawl in your belly.

This is what your life looks like now. You look back and can't help but notice that it took you two days to get into their bed, and it doesn't surprise you as much as it should. Because maybe your heart and mind have been in this since you crossed paths with them on that highway years ago.

With that in mind, when Michonne gets caramel sauce on the side of her wrist, you simply lean over and lick it off. Slow.

The surprise on her face slackens into pleasure, her hand going to cup your cheek. Out of the corner of your eye you can see how Daryl's gone completely still. Emboldened by their reactions, you turn your head, deliver another lick to Michonne's palm, then catch two of her fingers between your lips, pushing your tongue between them.

"Y'like that?" you ask, muffled around her digits, and the swift darkening color of her eyes are answer enough, as is how she slides off the couch to kiss you, deep and full of intent.

It's Daryl who gets the two of you off the floor and into the bedroom, strips you of your clothes as Michonne rids herself of hers. Your breath's already sticking to your lungs, stuttering out of you when Daryl pets you indulgently, calluses scraping all the right places. He smirks and bites at your neck, pushes you onto your back atop the mattress.

"All yours," he tells Michonne, kissing her shoulder once before sinking down beside you, looking terribly unperturbed save for his obvious hardon and the flush going all the way down into his shirt.

And Michonne sets herself between your legs, rubbing softly at your thighs and every inch of skin she touches feels much too thin. She must sense how you've tensed up, because she sighs and pushes a hand through your hair, murmurs, "We don't have to do this now."

"No," you moan, soft and trickling out of your chest. "We do."

She smiles and snaps on a glove, slicks up with lube. "Tell me if I should stop," she tells you, and strokes down your cock and balls, nudges at your hole. It's alien, unnaturally smooth and slippery, and when she prods until the tip of her finger slips in the sensation is strange but not uncomfortable. You tilt your hips until her finger slides in to the knuckle, and the nervousness is soon overpowered by disbelieving arousal.

Michonne adds another and you feel the stretch now, but then she twists her fingers around inside you, and _up_, and. Your stomach bottoms out, a bolt of crippling want surging through you as you gasp, and Daryl licks at the line of your ear, smirk audible as he hums, "there's the spot."

You can only smack at him weakly, but then Michonne crooks her fingers again and you have to grip Daryl' shoulder to keep yourself from arching off the bed. He laces his hand around yours, an oddly sweet gesture considering how he's grinding a little against your hip. Two fingers become three, and slowly you can feel yourself grow not loose, but pliant.

"Ready?" Michonne asks, breathless herself, and you nod, whining when she draws away, and Daryl has the gall to chuckle at that.

"It gets better," he promises you, throaty and scraped up for some reason, and he rolls a condom down your dick, copping another feel as he does so. Your brain barely even registers that, transfixed as you are by Michonne guiding the dildo between her thighs, the flutter of her chest while she adjusts it. You must be going insane, drunk and made hysterical by both their predatory smiles.

Michonne pushes your leg up to spread you open, nearly bending you in two and you're on fire everywhere, mortified by what's happening but you cant your hips towards her anyway, needing to get closer, needing to fill the void inside you.

She reaches down and guides her dick against your hole and you jerk up with a whine, Daryl hissing as you crush his hand in yours, but he doesn't pull away.

"Relax, darlin," he whispers, almost at the same time Michonne says, "I'll go slow," but you're already shaking your head, choking out _please_ and hoping that they'll understand what you mean.

They do.

Michonne kisses your sternum, pushing inside you steady and relentless, and for a second there's not enough air on earth for your aching lungs, but then the intrusion is no longer that but welcome, needed, and her hips are flush against your ass.

It's different from her fingers, so much bigger and more solid, and the first drag away again has you crying out, a fragile birdcall. Michonne tightens her hold on the back of your knee, props herself up on your chest with her other hand so she can thrust back inside easier, brush over that spot inside you that has hellfire licking up your spine.

Daryl sucks at the hinge of your jaw, rocking into your side faster and so does Michonne, moving in tandem and it's like they're both fucking you at the same time. The thought has you mewling, twisting your hand in Daryl's shirt to ground yourself. You're riding the crest of pleasure almost there but it's not enough to end you and you want to _die_.

"Do you want Daryl to touch you?" Michonne asks, and you sob yesyes_yes_ until Daryl's fumbling hand tugs on your cock, a counterpoint to the thrusts so deep inside you and it's just what you need. You come first, and you would be more ashamed but you're enveloped in silver and gold, everything so still and so quiet.

Daryl finishes with aborted jolts of his hips, and Michonne stays inside you a bit longer, but leaves you empty all too soon.

For the rest of the night, though, they make you stay.

* * *

Two months after Lori files the divorce papers, you finally agree to sign them as well.

You're in a coffee shop, hating the squishy softness of the chair you're in, fidgeting like a toddler. You're about to stand and go to another table that's vacated and set with nice traditional wooden furniture when Lori arrives.

"Sorry I'm late." She's worse for the wear, collarbones hard from where they're peeking above her blouse, bags under her eyes. It jars you, because this whole time you've been thinking she's been perfectly happy to have you out of her life but that's clearly not the case. An amicable-looking Asian kid comes up to take your orders but Lori waves him away.

She inhales sharply, clearly steeling herself for something. Her next words are anything but expected.

"I'm pregnant. I thought you should know."

You must look downright comical right now, your mouth fish-gaping as you try to respond. "How long have you known," you manage, wrenching your hands together before you. Has it been days? Weeks? Is it even yours or had Shane bedded your wife the second you left?

"For a month, after I took the test," she says, and you have to laugh, head in your hands, utterly aghast. Because two months ago you'd had wonderful sex for the first time in a long while, though that also turned out to be the last time, because you hadn't even buttoned up your pants when she told you she wanted you out of the house so. Here you are.

You peek at her through your fingers, and she's staring back, mute as any marble statue. She's taken her wedding ring off, you note absently, whereas you still haven't thought to do the same. "And you still want this."

It ends up sounding like a question, as you gesture to the innocuous papers sitting before you, and she bobs her head in assent one too many times. "For what it's worth, Rick, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those awful things to you. You're not broken, or used up. We just don't work anymore."

You don't bother to reply, slumping down, suddenly tired beyond expression. "Let's get this over with, then."

They find you like that later, sitting forlornly in the same spot, and Daryl elbows you in greeting, takes the chair opposite you while Michonne drags another to your left side, a small, understanding smile on her face. Daryl bickers with the Asian waiter, and Michonne pours one of every kind of sweetener into her coffee, then just a little cream and a few melted chocolate chips dug carefully out of her cookies.

Daryl kicks you under the table, and then hooks his foot around your ankle, leaves it there. You pull experimentally and he follows the movement, smiling all benign and unsuspecting when you lift your eyebrows at him.

Michonne takes a quick peek to see what's happening, sighs like a martyr. "Footsies. You wanna be any more cliché?"

You laugh, memorizing the embarrassed slant of Daryl's eyes, his downtrodden scowl, his huffy mouth. He tries to mask it through eating his pretzel, but with no success.

It's nothing spectacular, really, but the mere fact that they're within arm's reach and choosing to be here with you settles your tempestuous mind, brings you much-needed peace.

"Next time I." Your throat goes dry as gin, and you close your eyes, not sure how people can go about asking these kinds of things and not die from humiliation afterwards.

"Yeah?"

"What is it?"

You exhale as evenly as you can. "I. I want you both in me. At the same time."

* * *

_Next time_ turns out to be right that very night, and you've barely even hit the bed before Daryl drops to his knees, scrabbling at your belt and you can only let your head thud against the foam, let him edge your underwear out of the way. He's nearly frantic in his enthusiasm, and you'd thought he just loves going down on women, Michonne, but Christ almighty, that isn't the case.

You try not to thrust into the hot wet crush of his mouth, but Daryl makes it so difficult. He won't stop making these stifled animal sounds from deep in his chest that vibrate straight onto your dick, thumbs circling over your iliac crests in futile attempts to soothe you. You grasp him by the shoulders, trying not to come so soon like a damn teenager again.

But then he pulls away with a soft popping sound, teeth scraping so low on your stomach as he tells you, "I wanna eat you out," and you almost mess yourself, pleasantly surprised by how eager you are.

"Yes," you hiss like static, and he pulls your jeans and boxers off, guides you onto your hands and knees. Now you can see how Michonne's naked form comes over to join you, fitting perfectly underneath you and rocking up lightly, her hand on your face and her eyes burning.

It's messy, and so much more intense than anything you've ever dreamed it would be. You'll never be the same again. You won't be able to even glance at Daryl's mouth without going red, without thinking of this.

Daryl licks into you with broad sweeping strokes of his tongue, sucks softly at your rim, does every unbearable thing possible and you want to squirm away as much as you want to thrust back against him. He keeps you still, however, his hands tight and possessive on your ass while he parts your cheeks to make it easier for him to take you down piece by quivering piece.

Michonne kisses you and you gulp down a plaintive whimper, though it escapes in smithereens. It's invasive, too close, too much, and it's not long before you groan against Michonne's mouth, trying not to collapse and crush her when you come.

You're arranged onto Daryl's lap once he strips down, his cock heavy against the small of your back and you sigh happily, boneless and relaxed enough to take Michonne's finger inside you easily, though you whimper when it brushes too close, still oversensitive. Two, three fingers added with another three, and by the time they're done stretching you out you're hard again, and a mess of the man you once were.

It's Daryl who enters you first, and he says your name like it's the dirtiest curse he can think of, voice cracking at the end of it. He feels different inside you than Michonne did: warmer, more yielding, but no less devastating. He folds his hands over your thighs to open you up to Michonne's hands and cock, and your heart all but clambers out of your ribcage.

The slick tip of the dildo prods against your hole, pushes inside and you're afraid you might start hyperventilating, not helped by Michonne's astonished, dizzying smile. You're just so _full_, the dull ache and the pressure and the friction and their gasps and moans more dangerous than napalm, and you lose yourself to it all. You don't bother to hold back what ungodly sounds and babble crawl out of your throat.

Michonne bites at your nipple. Or maybe it's Daryl's carelessly raking fingernails, you can't tell. Everything ends up as sensation, glowing bright and sharp like mercury, eating you alive from between your legs to your torso and limbs and soul, and. Everything goes black.

When you come to, you're on your side with the two of them still inside you. Daryl blows out a wet laugh against the back of your neck. "You got us worried there for a sec, man," he says, and Michonne agrees with a kiss against your slack mouth, coaxing a ragged whine out of you. You're trembling, and you realize they are too. Daryl's still hard, and Michonne's belly is drawn taut when you rest your hand against it.

"You, you can move," you whisper. "Wanna feel it."

They start thrusting again, a blast of convoluted painpleasure behind your eyes, and it's. Raw, and sweet, and the precious few moments after they've come and are curled around you like a cocoon amaze you. Their lips rest against your skin and it's as if they'd never been anywhere else.

* * *

You dream of hustling motionless, gaunt-boned people at pool beside a neon-blue ocean, and Daryl fixing drinks at an endless bar, smiling even as wings bloom from his back, glossy with blood. There are hundreds of dollar bills scattered on the pool table, and Michonne's dicing them up like lettuce with a samurai sword, and she's smiling too.

Then she leans over to take your face in her hands, kissing you hard and careless until your legs turn into jellyfish. Daryl's wings, now a clean pure grey, come to curl around the both of you, surrounding you in warmth.

You'd never woken up to someone fucking themselves onto you before. This is what it feels like.

"Oh Christ," you spit out, your hands flying to Daryl's hips as he clenches around you, and he's visibly grinning and flushed even in the half-glow of the night lamp. He gyrates his hips, experimental, almost coquettish, and you almost moan but then remember Michonne. You twist your head to find her still asleep, the outline of her ribs expanding and collapsing with each steady breath.

Daryl stretches himself out fully on top of you to get to your mouth, licking his way in even as he undulates against you. You'd spend forever right here, stuck in this lazy haze with the world frozen around you, deliriously grateful for this new life ahead of you made up of nothing but Saturdays.

Michonne slides across the sheets, wide awake now, and she nestles her head in the crook of your neck, reaches out to stroke Daryl's cock, humming appreciatively when he stutters and groans, moves restlessly into her hand then back onto you. You meet every roll of his hips with a thrust, and the whole thing feels balletic, beautifully timed. Neither of you are going to last long.

"C'mon then," you say desperately, and Daryl's panting like a steamroller, grasping your hands above your head so hard you feel your bones creak, palms sweaty and breaking. You watch his face when he comes, frank astonishment with his shoulders tense and high before he sags against you. You sigh and come without shame, shaking apart.

Nothing happens for a while. Your ears are buzzing, your chest crushed. Daryl's breath is wet against your neck. Eventually he says, hushed and conspiratorial, "Hey, we can't leave the lady hangin."

You laugh, kiss him again before he climbs off you to get on Michonne's other side. "Good morning, lady," you tell her, nip your way down from her mouth to the apex of her thighs, and she makes this sound when you suck on the sensitive space below her navel, rising and impatient and so damn sexy that you give up on the chase, drag your tongue along her clit at the same time Daryl rolls her nipple between his lips. Her hands knot in your hair and Daryl's, pinning you both in place until she's come at least twice.

Breakfast is pancakes and strawberry syrup, and you can't stop smiling, happiness filling your chest and punching out of your body in gusts. Michonne's wearing your shirt, and Daryl's late for work, hopping around on one socked foot as he eats, swearing a blue streak. But he takes time to kiss the both of you goodbye, and your cheek feels sugar-sticky from where he pressed his fingers to tilt your head up.

"I'm thinking about taking a break from the firm," Michonne tells you as you start washing the dishes, looking out the window like the latticework of city streets holds the key to the universe. "My dad called, told me that Andre needs to be back with his mother. He's right." Her teeth are sunk into her lower lip. "I don't know what you and Daryl would say, though, to having a three year old running around."

You pull her close and she doesn't complain about your sudsy hands, lightens up a little when you kiss the pinched look off her face. "I'd like that. And so will Daryl, I know."

She smiles, and in that moment you think that you want no part of an existence where this is denied you.

* * *

Judith's laughing.

She and Andre are both laughing, actually, as Michonne sprays more cheese into her mouth and snarls at them, synthesized yellow-gummed and as threatening as a Chihuahua. "Again, Mama, again!" Andre keeps shrieking long after Michonne's swallowed the junk food, his arms shooting out to balance Judith when her hiccupping giggles become too much of an effort for her to stay upright.

Daryl shakes his head sternly at them from where he and Carl are constructing a miniature metropolis out of Legos. "Nu-uh, little man. Yer mama's eaten way too much of that already. 'Sides, Asskicker needs her nap, she's leavin in a few."

"Why do they always have to leave?" Andre's whine is petulant and plaintive, and you stoop down to nuzzle his curly head. "They always come back after a while, don't they?" you reason with him, and he pouts, crossing his arms and looking so much like his mother it makes your cheeks hurt from grinning.

You scoop your daughter up, cooing at her all the way to Andre's room, which she shares with Carl whenever Lori brings them over. She nods off without a fuss, and you turn around to see Andre standing in the doorway. He looks up at you with all the solemnity a toddler can muster, tells you, "My sister's pretty."

The rest of your family are smiling at you from the living room. Your heart tries its best to climb up your throat.

You clear your throat and kneel down to hug Andre, saying, "Yeah, peanut, she is."

It's been a year and a half since Lori filed the divorce papers, but you've long ago stopped measuring the passage of time like that.

* * *

**well, that's that. i dunno if you guys noticed but almost every scene here was either a sex scene or an eating scene. it wasn't intentional but ah well. clearly i prioritized the basic bodily functions, angst and drama aside. hope y'all enjoyed my natterings. (and i'm absolutely not thinking about writing RPF that has danai and norman double-teaming andy. nope. not at all.)**


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